


a very responsible person

by sharivan



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 20:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5347976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharivan/pseuds/sharivan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They continued to share a tent even once they had other traveling companions, without a thought, until the night Bethany dragged Anders’ pack in with hers. It was a long time before Marian found the rhythm of Varric’s breathing as reassuring as her sister’s. Eventually his snores and the smell of string wax send her back to sleep as quickly as Bethany’s lavender and night coughs. By then the sisters no longer traveled together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a very responsible person

The first time they left the city it was just the two of them, sent to pick up a stash of weapons for Athenril. They laid down on their bedrolls side by side and could almost have been children again, telling scary stories in the bed they’d shared before the move to Lothering.

The Wounded Coast was no colder than their room once was. The ground was harder than their mattress but not half as lumpy. They slept well, the familiar sounds of their breathing a comforting reminder of home. Half their family was dead and Kirkwall past due to fall into the ocean but the sisters Hawke were still together.

They continued to share a tent even once they had other traveling companions, without a thought, until the night Bethany dragged Anders’ pack in with hers. It was a long time before Marian found the rhythm of Varric’s breathing as reassuring as her sister’s. Eventually his snores and the smell of string wax send her back to sleep as quickly as Bethany’s lavender and night coughs. By then the sisters no longer traveled together.

* * *

There were gutted squirrels in the pot over the fire and a fat puppy eating the last of their intestines at Marian’s feet when Leandra entered the kitchen.

“Marian! I know you’re planning to wash the floor when you’re done.”

Her daughter sighed - truly, being asked to wipe the blood off the floor and get rid of the squirrel skins was the worst thing that could be expected of a girl her age.

“It’s not like it was clean to begin with.”

“Marian.”

* * *

“Wait, what?” Marian asked. “What am I in trouble over exactly?”

Her father frowned at her. “Breaking your mother’s lamp. Unless there’s something else we ought to know about?”

Behind him Bethany and Carver look up at her wide-eyed and pleading.

“No,” Marian said. “Can’t think of anything just now.”

Marian did their share of the weeding that week only as long as their parents were watching. She held it over them for far longer.

* * *

Carver and Bethany were still tiny and soft when Hawke learned to fight, already aware that there were more dangers than wild animals and the occasional bandit. She was quicker than she was strong even then but as she learned to fight with quarterstaffs she imagined the sword she might carry some day.

She never did buckle a sword at her hip. There were so many more interesting ways to get into trouble by the time she was big enough, daggers at her back and lockpicks down her vest. Then Beth came into her magic and the stories Hawke told herself changed, so she snuck past templar guards and opened prison cells and vaulted across yards of distance to stand between her sister - not powerless, never powerless, but fragile - and men with swords.

By the time Carver took up a sword, Hawke hardly remembered her childhood dreams.

* * *

She leaned in and told the mage, “That explains your haunted good looks. I love a man with a dark past.”

“Maker, Marian!” Bethany yanked her back. “Sorry about your friend, Anders, we’ll stop by the clinic later to see if you need anything.”

He squinted a little - really, smiles for Marian’s foolishness but only confusion for her? - But said “Of course, Serah Hawke.” Bethany was nearly sure he was speaking to her, that for once she was the Hawke who needed to be dealt with and Marian her amusing shadow.

She didn’t stop smiling all the way back to Lowtown, even once Marian and Varric started teasing her about her gentleman-love. 

“A dark past and a good line in naming pets, Varric, no Hawke could resist.”

“So I saw before Sunshine here dragged you off him. Though you seem to have trouble resisting half the people we run into.”

“Please! I’d never flirt with a templar, I have some standards - “

“Really? What are they?” Bethany asked.

They bickered happily all the way to the Hanged Man. Marian didn’t flirt with Anders again.

* * *

Hawke sat on a bench in the antechamber. Her armor was black and sleek, her blades wicked on her back, and in most of the city she would no longer be asked to wait at all. The templars found her less impressive.

“Marian?” a young templar trailed after Bethany as she entered the room. They hugged, long familiar with the feel of soft robes on creaking leather.

“How have you been?”

Bethany was sane. Bethany was content, or resigned - not interested, in either case, in Hawke’s apologies and wild plans. 

“Oh, not bad. Aveline’s been trouble - she’s fallen for a guard and sent me running after his approval for her in the stupidest ways. First she had this copper plaque commissioned -“

“Surely Aveline can handle her own love affairs.” They sat together on the bench, hand in hand.

Hawke had to disagree. “So I would have said! But it’s been all ‘Hawke, run this errand for me, no questions, listen for his reaction’ - it’s like I’m fourteen again and playing go-between for Alice and Evan.”

Which, in retrospect, had not been significantly more successful than her recent efforts on Aveline’s behalf. Oh, she’d walked in on them with their hands up each others’ shirts in Alice’s barn not long after, but her messages certainly hadn’t gotten them there.

“I take it she didn’t ask for your credentials.”

“Well, I suppose she can’t know too many people outside the guard except for those she puts in gaol. They probably aren’t encouraged to wander about the offices.”

“Winning over common criminals on a technicality, that’s my big sister.”

“And you? Any intrigue in the Circle?” It hurt to ask. It hurt to have to, to have let things come to this, two sisters talking together under a templar’s half-hearted supervision. It must have hurt Bethany more.

Bethany glanced at the guard before saying, “Anthony and Gevan are fighting again, supposedly about who’s better at ice magic. The rest of us are betting on whether they’ll get together.”

“See that you win!”

They chattered aimlessly until Bethany said “Everything’s fine,” and Hawke believed her, as much as she believed anything could be fine in that place.

“Anything you want mother to bring when she comes by?”

After promising to get her sugar cookies and slippers Hawke left the Gallows, dry-eyed and straight-backed. She lost spectacularly at Wicked Grace that night.

* * *

Marian might not have stopped him. Oh, she wouldn’t have said, “If we come across an ogre you should charge it before the rest of us can back you up” but Carver wanted to be a warrior hero and that was what they did. They saved people that way, not by sneaking up behind their enemies one at a time and stabbing them in the kidneys, so why shouldn’t Carver do the same? He joined them in death before he could be the subject of a single heroic ballad.

She tried to make up a few once she was settled in Kirkwall but never really found the knack for it. Varric refused, too busy working on romances and keeping an eye on everyone he’d ever met to write a song about a dead boy whose own family didn’t speak that well of him.

If Leandra couldn’t stop reminding Marian that Carver was her charge and his death is the result of her failure, well. She wasn’t wrong.

* * *

Their year was almost up when Bethany got Marian alone and said, “We need to do something else.”

Athenril had been professional, appropriately appreciative of the sisters Hawke and their hands-on approach to problem-solving. Marian liked her, when she wasn’t going out of her way to be disliked by everyone.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Maker, anything. Aveline might have heard of something. Or we could escort travelers on the Wounded Coast, go hunting for treasure… I can’t do this any longer, Marian.”

Their recent errands had come with entirely too many laments about how terrible it was for their mother to live in Lowtown, laments which might not have been all about Leandra after all. So Marian said, “Okay, we’ll find something.”

* * *

Part of the challenge was being Fereldan. Part of it was finding people who saw Bethany’s robes and giant staff and never considered alerting a templar. Marian was fairly sure none of it could be blamed on her; her talents for charm and threats were unassailable, whatever other people might suggest.

There were jobs that wouldn’t take them. There were jobs that would clearly lead to their deaths. There was talk of a Deep Roads expedition that could make their fortunes if they managed to survive it. It was the best option Kirkwall held for them.


End file.
